Shell targets to produce sustainable aviation fuel at scale by 2025

Shell targets to produce sustainable aviation fuel at scale by 2025

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell plans to start producing low-carbon jet fuel at scale by 2025, in an attempt to encourage the world's airlines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reported Reuters.

Aviation, accounting for 3% of the world's carbon emissions, is considered one of the toughest sectors to tackle due to a lack of alternative technologies to jet fueled-engines.

Shell, one of the world's largest oil traders, said it aims to produce 2 million tons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2025, a ten-fold increase from today's total global output.

Produced from waste cooking oil, plants and animal fats, SAF could cut up to 80% of aviation emissions, Shell said.

Shell, which at present only supplies SAF produced by others, including Finnish refiner Neste, said on Monday it wants green jet fuel, which can be blended with regular aviation fuel with little need to change plane engines, to make up 10% of its global aviation fuel sales by 2030.

SAF accounts for less than 0.1% of today's global aviation fuel demand, which reached around 330 million tons in 2019, investment bank Jefferies said.

Growing the market faces several hurdles, primarily due to the cost of SAF, which is currently up to 8 times higher than regular jet fuel, and the limited availability of feedstock.

Shell said it wants others to follow its lead.

"We also expect other companies to add to it with their own production plants," Anna Mascolo, head of Shell Aviation, told Reuters.

The United States said last week it wants to cut aircraft greenhouse-gas emissions by 20% by the end of the decade by significantly boosting SAF usage.

Anglo-Dutch shell, which aims to reduce emissions from fuels it sells to net zero by 2050, is in the midst of a large overhaul aimed at producing more low-carbon fuels such as biodiesel and SAF, as well as hydrogen. Shell plans to build a biofuels processing plant at its Rotterdam refinery with an annual capacity of 820,000 tons, with SAF set to make up more than half of the output. The plant is expected to start production in 2024.

In a new report on the decarbonisation of aviation published together with Deloitte, Shell called for the sector to cut its emissions to net zero by 2050.

As MRC informed earlier, Royal Dutch Shell plans to reduce its refining and chemicals portfolio by more than half, it said in July 2020 without giving a precise timeframe. The move is part of the Anglo-Dutch company's plan to shrink its oil and gas business and expand its renewables and power division to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply by 2050.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

Kaustik Volgograd shut PVC production

Kaustik Volgograd shut PVC production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Volgograd Kaustik, Russia's fourth largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer, shut down its production for a scheduled turnaround, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

A plant's representative said PVC production was taken off-stream for scheduled repairs on 20 September. The outage will be quite long and will last for about 21 days. The plant's annual production capacity is 90,000 tonnes.

It is also worth noting that this is the last shutdown for a scheduled maintenance at Russian PVC plants in 2021. SayanskKhimPlast and Bashkir Soda Company shut their production capacities in June-July. RusVinyl does not plan to carry out maintenance works this year.

JSC Kaustik is the principal plant of the group, manufactures basic products - caustic soda, chloroparaffins, synthetic hydrochloric acid, chlorine trademark, polyvinyl chloride, sodium hypochlorite, etc .; CJSC NikoMag - production of anti-icing materials, magnesium chloride, magnesium oxide and hydroxide; Zirax, Ltd. - production of high-purity reagents for various industries and JSC Poligran - the production of plastic compounds and rigid PVC compounds.
MRC

"Geksa - netkanyye materialy" plans to increase production capacity by 65%

MOSCOW (MRC) - The company "Geksa - netkanyye materialy" (Moscow region, part of the GEXA Group) intends to use a loan from the Industrial Development Fund (IDF) in the amount of Rb350 m to modernize the production of nonwovens with an increase in capacity at its site in the Tver region by 65% ??- up to 1,700 tonnes per month, the FRP said.

The company plans to increase production of disposable medical products, including surgical kits made from woven fabrics of its own production, as well as a wide range of surgical clothing and underwear for medical institutions, including covering materials for agriculture and construction under-roof single-layer and multi-layer membranes for wind insulation.

In August, GEXA Group opened a representative office of Gexa France in France, which will be engaged in the export of products from Russia to Europe. The representative office is organized in the commune of Villeneuve-Loubet in the south-east of France in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region.

Earlier it was reported that in 2018 the company "Geksa - netkanyye materialy" opened the production of specialized composite nonwovens and disposable medical products at its enterprise in the Toropetsky district of the Tver region.

According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, Russia's PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Shipments of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) increased. Supply of injection moulding statistical copolymer of propylene (PP-random) has decreased.

The production branch "Geksa - netkanyye materialy" in the Toropetsky District of the Tver Region is one of the largest sites for the production of nonwovens using spunbond technology, which is the basis for the manufacture of building membranes, medical products, as well as covering materials for agriculture. The total area of ??production, warehouse and administrative premises is 6 hectares. The Toropetsky plant produces over 18 thousand tons of spunbond per year, and the plant has also debugged the production of a volumetric geogrid (12,000 tonnes per year) and flat polymer filaments (more than 7,200 tonnes per year). Three sewing workshops produce over 220 million medical products a year.
MRC

Eni and Chevron Lummus partner for complete suite of residue hydrocracking technologies

Eni and Chevron Lummus partner for complete suite of residue hydrocracking technologies

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Italian energy group Eni and Chevron Lummus Global LLC, (CLG) have announced the execution of a Joint Cooperation and Licensing Agreement for a complete suite of residue hydrocracking solutions, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This will include Eni's EST (Eni Slurry Technology) and LC-FINING, LC-MAX, LC-SLURRY and LC-LSFO technologies from CLG. These world-class technologies will offer refiners a wide range of conversion options, including complete conversion of residua to valuable distillate products.

Both CLG and Eni bring deep investments in research and development that have led to the fast commercialization of cutting-edge residue hydrocracking technologies and superior technical and engineering services to support these technologies. Eni brings its EST technology to this cooperative arrangement as the market leader in slurry hydrocracking processes, offering to its clients a very high conversion competitive advantage. CLG's residue hydrocracking technologies based on a liquid circulation ebullated bed platform are the most widely used and solidly reliable residue hydrocracking technologies in the market for moderate to high conversion.

The agreement will enable Eni and CLG to utilize and enhance the complementary nature of their respective hydrocracking technologies, offering clients the most comprehensive array of solutions on a large commercial operating base. Eni and CLG will work closely at their leading-edge R&D facilities in Italy and the United States to develop the next generation of process and catalyst technologies suited to address the complete conversion of low-value residua and alternative feedstocks to valuable transportation fuels and petrochemical precursors.

As MRC reported earlier, Eni is evaluating conversion of its Livorno refinery in northwest Italy into a biorefinery, as part of the Italian company's wider strategy to make its activities more environmentally sustainable. Eni has already converted two of its Italian refineries and is looking to almost double its biorefining capacity to around 2 million mt/year by 2024, and expand this to at least five times by 2050, as part of its pledge to achieve complete carbon neutrality by 2050.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

Eni, abbreviation of Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, in full Eni SpA, Italian energy company operating primarily in petroleum, natural gas, and petrochemicals. Established in 1953, it is one of Europe's largest oil companies in terms of sales.
MRC

PepsiCo to cut the use of virgin plastic by 50%

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PepsiCo wants to cut the use of virgin plastic by 50% serving and use 50% recycled content in plastic packaging by 2030, said Canplastics.

Beverage and food supplier PepsiCo has announced a new goal to cut virgin plastic per serving by 50 per cent across its global food and beverage portfolio by 2030 as part of its new “pep+,” or PepsiCo Positive, company initiative.

In a Sept. 15 news release, the company also said it plans to use 50 per cent recycled content in its plastic packaging by 2030.

According to the news release, 11 European markets are moving key Pepsi-branded products to 100% rPET bottles by 2022. PepsiCo estimates that shifting to a 100 per cent recycled PET (rPET) bottle will lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by approximately 30 per cent per bottle.

And in the U.S., all Pepsi-branded products will be converted to 100 per cent rPET bottles by 2030, with Pepsi Zero Sugar beginning to be sold in 100 per cent rPET bottles by 2022.

Finally, PepsiCo says it has been investing in food packaging technology and is now introducing a fully compostable bag made with plant-based materials. “Starting with Off The Eaten Path, one of Frito-Lay’s plant-based brands, this industrially compostable packaging will be available to consumers in the U.S. at Whole Foods stores beginning this month,” company officials said.

These moves are part of the larger “pep+” initiative, which PepsiCo officials call “a strategic end-to-end transformation” that puts sustainability at the centre of how the company will operate.

As per MRC, petrochemical majors Dow, LyondellBasell and NOVA Chemicals on Wednesday announced a new USD25 million Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund to stimulate polymer recycling. The fund, which is expected to eventually invest USD100 million, will invest in technology. companies and infrastructure projects that will improve the recovery and recycling of polymers, including polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), in the United States and Canada.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PET consumption totalled 411,200 tonnes in the first six month of 2021, up by 12% year on year. Russian companies processed 62,910 tonnes in June, compared to 85,890 tonnes a month earlier.
MRC